BOOK II. Lxxxii. 194-LXXXIV. 197 



leave no traces ; it being usually cities that are 

 engulfed, and a tract of farmland swallowed, al- 

 though seaboard districts are most subject to earth- 

 quakes, and also mountainous regions are not free 

 from disaster of the kind : I have ascertained that 

 tremors have somewhat frequently occurred in the 

 Alps and Apennines. 



Earthquakes are more frequent in autumn and their 

 spring, as is lightning. Consequently the Galhc ««'"<^'' 

 provinces and Egypt suffer very httle from them, 

 as in the latter the summer is the cause that prevents 

 them and in the former the winter. Similarly they 

 are more frequent by night than in the daytime. The 

 severest earthquakes occur in the morning and the 

 evening, but they are frequent near dawn and in 

 the daytime about noon. They also occur at an 

 ecHpse of the sun or moon, since then storms are 

 lulled, but particularly when heat follows rain or 

 rain heat. 



LXXXIII. Sailors at sea can also anticipate an signs ofti 

 earthquake and forecast it with certainty when a »'«p^"<^'« 

 sudden wave SAvells up without there being a wind, 

 or a shock shakes the vessel. Even in ships posts 

 begin to tremble just as they do in buildings, and 

 foretell an earthquake by ratthng ; nay more, birds 

 of timid kinds perch on the rigging. There is also 

 a sign in the sky : when an earthquake is impending, 

 either in the daytime or a little after sunset, in fine 

 weather, it is preceded by a thin streak of cloud 

 stretching over a wide space. 



LXXXIV. Another sign is when the water in proienior, 

 wells is muddier and has a somewhat foul smell, """*'"'> 

 just as in wells there is also a remedy for earthquake 

 such as frequently caves too afford, as they supply 



327 



